Impact of Climate Change on Residential Electricity in Western Cities in China

Extreme weather induced by climate change has triggered large-scale power outages worldwide. More insight into the climate impact (especially precipitation) on residential electricity consumption (REC) is needed. With a particular focus on precipitation, our study aimed to quantify the climate impact on REC and project associated changes under the representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 2.6, 4.5, and 8.5 climate change scenarios in Lanzhou and Lhasa, two western cities in China. The climate impact on REC in both cities is driven by heating-related demand, with Lanzhou being more sensitive to climate than Lhasa during the warm season. There is a stronger precipitation impact during the cold season in both cities, since precipitation (especially snowfall) boosts electricity consumption during the cold season. As the two cities become warmer and wetter, precipitation will offset the impact of warming on REC, with Lanzhou being more affected. Based on Lanzhou projections, the offsetting effect will be more pronounced in the cold season across all scenarios, and will be particularly strong under RCP 2.6. For the remainder of the year, the effects of increased precipitation and warming will have competing importance under the RCP 4.5 scenario, whereas temperature effects will generally dominate the climate impact under the RCP 8.5 scenario. Our results provide new references for future climate–energy studies in western China and can help inform policy-making on regional climate adaptation. We also propose an algorithm model that is readily compatible with potential early-warning projects to protect against extreme weather-induced power outages.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Unknown venue

• Publication date

  2021-11-16

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.21203/rs.3.rs-971158/v1
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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